After years of playing in other people’s bands around Chicago and doing a lot of classic strummy “la la la” acoustic stuff, Laura Callier of Gel Set decided it was time to shed her disdain for electronic music.
Although for most of her existence she found it repetitive and “really lame,” she was feeling creatively stifled performing other people’s music.
“I wanted to make something darker and less cheesy, pop-y,” she told the Chicago Tribune.
She eventually gravitated into the electronic spectrum because of the ease with which she could make her own beats, something that has since occupied a major space not only in her performance, but in her creative process.
And thus, Gel Set: a project that started as an anti-happy response to other people’s pop songs, a “wouldn’t it be funny if I made a bunch of creepy noise” moment that culminated with the recording of oh, about fifteen songs about murder. This is why I like this chick.
Sound-wise, her music is a hard-hitting mix of heavy, distorted synth and vintage 808-y drum machine samples … goth-pop at its weirdest. Her aesthetic is definitely lo-fi and anything but squeaky clean; it’s almost intentionally grimy and imperfect which you might not like if you suckle on the Top 40 tit. Her vocals are buried deep in ambient echo and fuzz, and she sings mainly about places to hide dead bodies and how a certain someone is a “such a memorable piece of shit.” On SoundCloud, her songs are tagged #murderdisco and #bikerideintheghetto, so, yeah … pretty much trying to marry this bitch.
Because whatever kumbaya shit she was doing before Gel Set, she’s doing the opposite of now.
But no matter how many murder ballads you rack up, working as an electronic as a woman isn’t easy. The genre is filled with gear nerds who prize what you own more than what you create, and industry hot shots looking to capitalize on female’s images rather than what bizarro sounds their bodies make. That being said, one of my favorite extra-musical aspect of Gel Set is her own personal brand of feminism. She’s a laser-focused creator, despite some of her male contemporaries hesitation to take her as seriously as they should.
On being doubted by male electronic-music nerds/asshats:
“One of my favorite things is setting up before a show when the sound guy treats you like you don’t know what you’re doing,” she said in that Chicago Tribune interview from above.”My favorite thing is when a show starts off like that and then I can tell he’s a little bit impressed. That’s always really satisfying.”
Of course, numerous men have offered to produce her work, but she ultimately rejected their requests on the basis that they’d try to clean up her act. “I’m sure my stuff sounded pretty lo-fi and pretty janky, but I don’t know, I like that aspect of it,” she said. Same.
Still, despite her power-stance on EDM penises, Gel Set began as something of a joke … which was really just Laura’s way of avoiding rejection. “If people don’t like it, still, I am generally like, well, it’s not that serious, so who cares?”
Except, people do like it. It’s clever songwriting; self-aware, ironic, and absorbing … even though it makes you want to gut a teddy bear.
There’s a running theme through a lot of her music about “being yourself” and not needing to creatively submit to someone else’s vision/preconceptions – whether it be the male dominant electronic music scene, musical collaborators, or the three decades of music from which she’s clearly both emulating and satirizing. However, at her nascent stage, there’s a lot of self-doubt too … a lot of humility when it comes to taking the music out of her safe space and not believing that her own identity has a place outside of that cocoon. Thus, currently, she seems to be right at the halfway point between total self-consciousness and the stage where she finds her voice. She’s very much the emo kid hiding from the world behind her long bangs … but that’s what makes her interesting. She’s a work in progress, and you get to watch her become something neither she or you expected.
Anyway, she has a video about a woman who falls in love with a pigeon, and finds out the bird has been two-timing her, but is ultimately saved by a rat … so really if you’re not sold by now then you’ll never be and you’re off the island.
Also, I’ll just leave her first LP, Cell Jets, right here for you … if you need a recommendation, and of course you do, I’d go with “Eyes Wide Shut,” which is a fucked up mutation of Creed’s “With Arms Wide Open.” LOL-ing forever.
Gel Set’s got no plans to play in LA anytime soon, but since her new LP is almost out … Hey Gel Set, come to LA. In the meantime, look for that LP to drop on July 7th.
